Puppet and Master
by Masako Moonshade
Summary: In the months before 9's awakening, the Scientist takes refuge with the Rebels and builds the creatures that will preserve the future... but not before seriously confusing his handlers. T for language and violence.
1. August 6

**Puppet and Master**

AN: This takes place before the movie and is based on the diary entries on the 9experiment website. According to these, the Scientist denounced the Chancellor when he learned that his BRAIN was being used to make war machines. He then sought help from the Rebels, a resistance movement who had been fighting against the Chancellor, his wars and his machines. When the Chancellor and the army fell, the Rebels were the ones left fighting the machines. It says in the diary entries that he was hidden by the Rebels and that they assisted (somehow) in the creation of the Stitchpunks. This is my take on that period of time; the dates correspond to the events and timeline given in the diary.

And if anyone is confused by the name, Geppetto was the old guy from Pinocchio. Any usage of that name in this story refers to the Scientist.

Disclaimer: Don't own 9, the Scientist, the Stitchpunks or the setting.

* * *

**August 6**

His guards called him Geppetto. He didn't remember which one of the youths first chose the name, but within a week it had spread to most of the Rebels, and he never protested it.

It was an appropriate name, they decided, for the toymaker whose creation came to life and went wild. The difference was that the story's Pinocchio had never done anything worse than run away from home.

"Time to pack up," one of his guards announced, walking down the stairs of the empty house. "We're moving." She tossed a bottle of water to the other, younger guard who reclined in a corner—they were all so young—"And you can go home, Pete. Shift's over."

"'s about time," the other muttered, pulling himself up. "Took you forever." He yawned, trudging up the stairs.

"Yeah, you can sue me when we win." She deposited another bottle on the Geppetto's desk, far more careful than she had been a moment before. They couldn't risk disturbing the Scientist's work. Especially not this piece. Geppetto looked up at her, one of his eyes grotesquely enlarged by the jeweler's loupe he wore. "Get this stuff together, we're moving you."

"What's the occasion?" He asked quietly, gathering the papers from his cluttered desk.

"The machines are heading this way," the guard said, taking the stack of papers from him and stuffing them into a large envelope. "They're bombing civilian houses, and they're not skipping the basements. You're going to a bunker on the south side of town."

"I see." He removed the loupe and returned their proper place on his face. The eyepiece, as well as the series of awls and screwdrivers and drills, was deposited into a box. "You live in this area, don't you?"

"Not anymore."

"Is your sister all right?"

She looked away. "I moved her when I heard. She'll be fine."

"Which is why you kept our friend Peter waiting." The guard swallowed, but a soft half-smile crept onto the Scientist's face—the first in a long while. "I'm glad she's safe. It's refreshing that some of us can still keep our priorities intact."

"The _priority_ is keeping you secure so you can help us stop the machines," she said sharply. "Everything else should come after that."

"That's where you're wrong, Samantha" Geppetto said, shaking his head softly. "Machines see a world of means and ends. If we lose sight of ourselves—of our humanity—then this fight will be meaningless." He packed the last of the books and supplies together—only about a tenth of the materials he'd accumulated in the half month he'd spent with the Rebels. Most of those didn't matter anymore. The task was already finished.

"Whatever," the girl muttered, but her eyes hadn't left the prized possession that still lay on the table. The Scientist noticed her gaze and picked up the thing he called the Talisman. It was just a tiny disk, no bigger than a coin. If she hadn't known better, she might have mistaken it for a particularly gaudy button.

That stupid, stupid, damnable button. Geppetto had demanded that they retrieve it from the BRAIN. He'd suggested that removing it might cripple the monstrosity, or let it run out of power on its own, or kill it outright, and the Rebels couldn't ignore that possibility. No expense had been spared to retrieve the Talisman because of that hope. Twenty-five men and women went on the mission. Only one returned, but he brought with him the stupid little button and all the hopes and dreams that were nestled inside of it.

It might as well have been a button for all the good it did them. The BRAIN didn't die or slow down—as far as they could tell, it hadn't even noticed the loss of the Talisman. It just kept churning out killing machines and mowing down anything in sight.

"I finished it," Geppetto said quietly, pulling her from her memories. He held up the Talisman for her to see before tenderly setting it inside a velvet pouch.

"Lovely," she said impatiently. "Do you expect us to stick that thing back where it came from or something?"

"No." He tucked the pouch into a pocket beneath his lab coat. "No, nothing like that." The guard didn't ask him to elaborate; she just stacked up a few of the boxes and began carrying them up the stairs. The boxes were heavy—heavier than what a girl her age should have to lift—but she didn't cringe under the weight. She was like most of the Rebels: once a student at the nearby university, now a soldier against an enemy they couldn't possibly defeat. Books and pencils had been replaced by guns and grenades, and long hours of study and education had turned into shifts of guard duty. Peter was hardly sixteen; this one couldn't be older than twenty.

A few minutes later she returned for the second load.

"Come on," she said, piling the rest of the boxes in her arms. "The car's waiting outside." He squeezed the Talisman through its velvet pouch and followed her up the stairs, out of the house and into the sunlight for the first time in weeks.

The sky was dark despite the early hour, choked with the fumes of the nearby factories. Every surface within sight of the house had once been plastered with posters and slogans; most of them had been torn down or painted over. Once this might have warranted police action—currently every available weapon was busy keeping the machines at bay. The air was dry and the grass below his feet had faded to a dull yellow since he had taken up sanctuary in this house.

"Keep up," his guard said, leading him to the van that would take him to his new workshop. Just a van—it looked like it had once belonged to a plumber, whose child had been (according to the bumper sticker) an honor student at the local elementary school. Now it was filled with armed Rebels and the remains of his old lab. Sam handed her load to her fellow soldiers and climbed inside, turning to give the Scientist her hand.

"Come on. Time to go."


	2. August 7 and 9

Disclaimer: Still own nothing. Alas.

AN: Combined two days, because the first entry was so very short. Also, I looked up a list of minerals commonly associated with alchemy (the Black Science referred to in the movie, I believe), and the only ones that looked anything like crystals and gems were quartz and cinnabar. Since quartz is a lot easier to find and comes in a wider variety of colors, I went with that.

* * *

**August 7**

"You want _what_?" the guard asked.

"Fabric," Geppetto repeated. "It must be durable—denim or canvas, perhaps. And clocks. Several of them. As many as you can find. Perhaps a few microscopes as well, and…" He looked at his designs again, careful to keep them out of the young woman's sight. "A needle and thread—strong thread—and scissors."

"Okay, okay, hold up." She didn't have the patience to put up with this sort of thing. "Can you write it down or something?"

Geppetto wasted no time rummaging through his new workshop for a pen and unused scrap of paper, muttering to himself as he went. That was weird. He hadn't done this sort of thing before, and it was disconcerting. Normally he was quiet and calm and a bit slow to think things over, like he was weighing every option. Now he was worried. Rushed.

"Pliers, screwdrivers," he muttered once he found the tools he needed. "Small ones—the sort you'd find in an eyeglass repair kit. And several of them. Wire-cutters. Clockwork dolls, if you can find any, and…" He glanced at his notes again. "Several women's sandals."

That officially counted as the weirdest part of the request.

"Excuse me?"

"Women's sandals," he repeated, sounding more sure of himself. "The sort with those tiny buckles. Like belt buckles, but much smaller. Do you understand?"

Understanding was overrated. The Scientist offered her the scrap of paper.

"Um… sure," Sam said, taking the list from him. "I think I can do that."

...

**August 9**

When shifts changed Peter was already standing in the airlock between the bunker and the outside world.

"Sam, we gotta talk," he said, his voice hushed so it wouldn't carry. He glanced back at the door almost suspiciously.

"What's up?"

"The old guy's building something," he said. "Got his hands on a bunch of old cuckoo clocks and he's been taking them apart and putting stuff back together. All day. Hasn't slept in at least two shifts, and he's been muttering to himself and…" His eyes flickered, a moment's hesitation to say the rest. "And he's been asking for stuff."

"Canvas and thread and junk, I know," she said, holding up an old plastic shopping bag.

"Sam, you haven't been buying into all this, have you?" he demanded.

"Where do you think he got the clocks?" Peter's mouth fell open a fraction of an inch. She glared. "Hey, he's the Scientist here, remember? And he's not gonna be able to help us kill that thing unless he's got the tools to do it. And if those tools are sandals, then so help me I'll get him sandals. I want this mess over with, Pete."

"But he's—but—" She opened the door and walked past him. "Just—just make sure he gets some sleep, okay?"

The door shut, and Peter's voice vanished behind the barrier. Geppetto sat huddled over a desk at the far corner of the bunker, hastily tinkering with something.

"Hey there," she said, holding up the bag. "Got you a present."

The old man glanced briefly over his shoulder before returning to work.

"Thank you, Samantha," he said. His voice was raspy and hoarse and a bit harried. "What did you bring me?" He didn't turn around.

"Eyeglass repair kit," she said, grabbing it from her bag and laying the tiny tool set on a crate beside his desk. "Got the canvas you wanted from a bombed out craft store, and the needle and a whole bunch of thread and all that. And pretty much all the shoes in my mom's closet." That got his attention. He turned quickly and snatched up one of the sandals as she dumped them on the crate.

"Yes," he murmured, examining the clasps. "This will be perfect. Thank you, Samantha."

"No problem." For a while, that was it. She retreated into silence and he resumed his tinkering, but that didn't last long. Sam never could stand things being quiet for long. Geppetto, for his part, once made toys for a living. He remembered when his children and grandchildren would play with his creations while he worked on his newer projects, loved the sound of human voices gathering around him, inspiring him, adding a sense of liveliness to his works. That was why he was more than content when Sam's patience gave out and she started talking.

"I'd be glad to get you more if you want," she said, picking at her nails. "Lizzy—my sister, I mean, I don't think I told you her name—she loved helping me figure out where to get all that stuff. It's like a big scavenger hunt for her, you know?" A moment of silence as she bit at a hangnail. "She hates being cooped up inside all day, but she can't go outside. Too much of a chance of getting bombed or shot or gassed. I've got her reading right now, but that gets old after a while, you know? Just reading every minute of every hour of every day for ever and ever and ever. And she's seven—it's not like I can hand her Stephen King or my old textbooks or anything."

"Indeed a predicament," he said with a half smile, glancing at her over his shoulder. Forget hoarse—he sounded awful. Sam got up and grabbed a water from a nearby cooler (the water was warm; the Rebels had more important things to worry about than keeping the cooler stocked with ice) and approached Geppetto. It wasn't the first time she'd peeked at his work desk, but the first time she could even begin to identify what she saw there. The shape was… human-ish, though the entire figure was no more than six inches long. Two arms, two legs and a head were perched on an intricate mechanical torso; each arm ended in intricate little fingered hands and at the end of each leg was a tiny jointed foot, carved from what looked like pieces of one of the clock's wooden cuckoos. It had been… what? A day since she'd given him those clocks? A day and a half? And already he'd fashioned it into a little metal something. No wonder he hadn't slept.

"That's pretty awesome," she mentioned, putting the bottle of water down on the only empty space she could find on his desk.

He shook his head absently. "I wish I could do better. I used to be a master of the craft, you know." He chuckled to himself and tightened a screw in the figure's hip.

"Looks fine to me." _She_ certainly couldn't do any better.

"It's been years since I've done this sort of work," he said. "I've lost the precision I once had, the dexterity…"He shook his head. She touched his shoulder gently.

"You know, the same thing can happen if you don't get enough sleep."

"I'm fine," he assured her. "I just need to finish this."

"You can finish it tomorrow," she said. He opened his mouth to argue, but she cut him off: "I'm your bodyguard, remember? That means I'm supposed to protect you, and not just from all the nasty stuff out here. That means getting enough to drink." She picked the water bottle back up and pushed it into his hand. "And nap every now and then wouldn't hurt either."

"Perhaps you're right…" he rubbed the bridge of his nose under his glasses.

"All this is still gonna be here when you wake up. Promise."

"All right." He smiled gently and pulled himself to his feet. Those grey bushy caterpillar eyebrows had never seemed so heavy. "In case you leave before I wake, there's something I need you to get for me."

"Sure thing." She took his arm—it looked like he was about to fall—and slowly guided him to his cot.

"I need quartz. Three pieces of it, rather smooth and large. And more metal. Gold or silver or copper would be best."

"No problem," she said, letting go so he could take off his lab coat and hang it up. Quartz and pretty metal bits. Lizzy was going to love this.


	3. August 11, 15 and 18

Disclaimer: Alas, still nothing

AN: This one was incredibly short. A little more than 500 words altogether before I added the third day, which says something. And just so you know, we are quickly approaching the reason behind this story's _tragedy _label. You have been warned.

* * *

**August 11**

Geppetto was sleeping. It was weird for this time of day, but not alarming—his torso moved just slightly as he breathed, and the thinnest line of drool seeped from his lip onto his desk, indicating that he was, indeed, alive. It was hard to tell just then-- a deathly pallor had spread over his skin. Beside him lay an odd contraption—the three quartz pieces she'd retrieved, engraved with some odd symbols and set inside a large metal ring, all attached to a string of wires. It looked sort of like a convoluted dream-catcher, just… not. Weird, confusing, but not beyond the scope of a Scientist.

The bad thing—the one very disconcerting fact—was that the little figure was gone. The scraps were all there—the loose threads, the remnants of canvas, a few spare pieces of wire. Just no little doll thing.

Maybe he'd already given it to… whoever he was supposed to give it to. Some higher-up, probably.

Silently she deposited the results of her newest scavenger hunt on the crate by his desk (six microscopes, four pieces of glass, some thin sheets of what she could only guess was aluminum, and a dozen old-fashioned ink well pens). She'd tell him about the missing project when he woke up. He looked like he needed the sleep.

...

**August 15**

Alex came to relieve Sam as the ninth hour of her shift drew to a close. She'd been eager to go—Lizzy had made her promise to hurry home so they could play together. It wasn't much—just a board game that Sam had retrieved from the ruins of a toy store when she'd collected parts for Geppetto. She would have left right away, in fact, except for the bulge in Alex's shirt. Something had been stuffed up his sleeve, and he wasn't doing a great job of hiding it.

"What's that?" she asked, poking the bulge. It was soft. Not plushy soft, but… soft.

"Nothing," he said quickly.

"Come on, tell me," she said, poking it again. "What is—" Something poked out. Something pale and striped with thin lines of yellow and gray. Chagrined, he removed it from his sleeve. "What is that?"

"Garden gloves," he said indignantly. "What's it look like?"

"Are you…" she shook her head, puzzled. "…planning on doing some weeding tonight? I hate to break it to you, Alex, but there's not a lot of dandelions left. You're gonna have to find a new hobby."

"They're not for me!" he snapped, seizing the gloves protectively. "They're for Geppetto. He wanted something sturdy, and…" He rubbed the fabric of the gloves between his fingers. "This is pretty strong stuff."

"You've got a point," she said with a shrug. She was pretty sure the old man had meant for whole pieces of fabric—stuff he could sew into 'skin' for the little dolls he made. But at least Alex was making an effort. She was sure the Scientist would take the gloves and thank him and use them when he was welding or something.

It would be just like him to do that. Nice and polite in that old-fashioned way of his. Optimistic, too—so far both of his dolls had gone missing, and he didn't seem even slightly concerned about finding them.

"Anyway, I've got a game to catch."

...

**August 18**

"I can't believe you decided to use the gloves," Sam said. She was incensed, just waiting for something to set her off. Geppetto, ever considerate even in his failing health, decided to oblige her:

"Is something bothering you?"

"Of _course_ not. Why would you _ever_ think that?" The acid left her voice. "Do you have any idea where I found my sister this morning?" she demanded, pacing furiously behind him.

"Where's that?" Geppetto asked, not looking up from the two tiny bodies he was working on.

"In the wardrobe. As in a closet. Except that we don't live in a house anymore, we live in Grandpa's old bomb shelter, and those don't _have_ closets." She stomped at the floor. "She _made_ a closet out of a bunch of old cans and a couple planks of wood and she threw all her clothes inside and started digging around in it."

"Why would she do that?" he asked, carefully placing the glass-filled tube that would become an eye into its socket.

"Looking for Narnia." Sam laughed bitterly. "She said she was going to go and find Aslan to fix everything for us. Kill the machines and bring everyone back to life. And if that doesn't work, let's just go and live there. She wanted me to meet Mr. Tumnus. Said I would love him."

"It sounds like a wonderful dream," Geppetto mused.

"But it's _not_ a dream. She thinks it's real. She's been doing nothing but reading those books for weeks, and she honestly thinks she's gonna go out and find a talking lion to save the world. It's not healthy!"

"I see." He tested the tiny piece—the iris opened and shut perfectly. "What did you do?"

"I gave her a copy of _The Lord of the Rings_ and a dictionary," Sam said, slumping down in the spare chair. She heard a faint skittering sound by her feet and swore under her breath. "You might want to keep an eye on that canvas, Geppetto. It looks like you've got rats."

"I'll look into it."

"Dunno how they survived all this time," she muttered. "You'd think the gas would have gotten 'em all or something."

"Life finds a way," Geppetto said, holding out one of the dolls to study it from a distance. This one looked finished, but the other remained little more than a metal frame stuffed inside an old glove. Satisfied, he painted a 3 on the first and moved on to the second.

"I'm not cut out for this sort of thing," she said, talking as much to herself as to the Scientist. "I'm not my mom. I shouldn't be telling Lizzy not to believe in talking lions and fairytales. I should be telling her…" she sighed. "I should be telling her that boys are idiots the first time some jerk dumps her. I should be telling her that she doesn't have to look like those stupid magazines, and showing her how to put on makeup and stuff her bra." She flushed for a moment, remembering that Geppetto was still in the room, but shoved the embarrassment aside. He showed no sign of shame, so why should she? "Normal things, you know? I shouldn't be here. The world shouldn't be this way."

For a while the two of them lapsed into silence as the Scientist sewed the little figurine's skin together.

"Where are your parents?" he asked at last. "You never mentioned them before."

"Dead," she said too quickly. It had been smoldering inside of her, bubbling and boiling and waiting to burst at the first provocation. Problem was, nowadays most people didn't ask about that sort of thing. She hadn't been able to talk to Lizzy about it—she'd just handed her a book where a character died and hoped the child would make the connection on her own. "My dad was a soldier. Mom worked in one of the factories. Machines killed them both."

Another long silence passed between them while Geppetto mustered the courage to speak. This was his fault. He shouldn't have agreed to help the Chancellor. He shouldn't have made the BRAIN. He shouldn't have made it as intelligent as he did. He shouldn't have...

He shouldn't have done a lot of things.

"I'm sorry," he said at last, and he honestly meant it.

"There's bigger stuff to worry about right now," she said, staring determinedly at her gun. "I'll cry about it when we get all this taken care of." She cleared her throat and rubbed a speck of dust from her eye—dust, that's all it was, she promised—and looked for some way to change the subject.

"You know, people talked about it sometimes—that machines that could think were a bad idea. What if they turn on us or something, that sort of thing. I never believed it. That was all too sci-fi for real life, you know? It could never happen." She shifted in her chair. "I didn't join the Rebels for any of that. The Chancellor was a jerk and protesting was cool and all, but…" What the heck. It's not like she had anything better to do, and it was better than sobbing about things she couldn't change. "Truth is, I joined because of a boy. Gunter. Kind of weird name for around here, but with a face like that I really didn't care. He was all into this sort of thing—I thought if I joined he might notice me or something." She chuckled to herself. "It felt like it was so important at the time. Like nothing could matter more than getting some guy to like me. But that's life, I guess. Priorities change."

Another weight off her chest. She felt relieved. The two of them spent the rest of her shift debating whether talking lions were any better than wizards and magic rings, and for a brief moment the Scientist and his guard allowed themselves to escape the world of war. She left reluctantly when Alex came to relieve her of duty, but not before hearing a tiny, tinny voice whispering from a corner:

"What's a lion?"


	4. August 22

Disclaimer: Nopey nada nixedy nil.

* * *

**August 22**

It was rare when Geppetto gave Sam news of the outside world.

She had to move slowly that morning, learning to walk and breathe under the weight of a gas mask. The gas had blown into the city before, but never this thick, and it had never lasted this long. She hadn't gotten a chance to listen to news or gossip when she reported for duty, only rushing to relieve Peter and bring him his own mask.

"No more walks outside for a while," she'd announced when she joined Geppetto in the bunker. He didn't respond right away.

He looked grim. Quiet. Old.

"The Chancellor is dead," he said after a long silence.

Any other time, any other place, she might have celebrated. But the old man just looked too sad, too weary. She couldn't bring herself to act so callous in front of him, even if she _was_ glad the tyrant was gone.

"What happened?" she asked quietly, trying as hard as she could to be sympathetic. Geppetto had known the Chancellor, after all. True, the Chancellor had immediately betrayed him, stolen his masterpiece and used it to try to take over most of the continent, but at least he had known the guy. That had to count for something.

"He and a convoy of his men were trying to flee the city," he said slowly. "They were… armed. They expected an attack. They weren't prepared for the gas."

So that's where it had come from.

"The government is broken," he continued. His worn hands were wrapped around something under the desk, stroking it gently—another invention of some sort. "The country is broken. The machines have already won."

"That's not true," she said, a flare of anger. "No, this is just a setback. We're going to pull through this. We're gonna make it."

"I don't think you understand," Geppetto said. "The BRAIN will never stop. It won't tire, won't sleep, won't starve. It will keep going until every fragment of life in this world is dead."

"Maybe it won't stop," she snapped. "But neither will I, and neither will you. Life finds a way, remember? You said that. And there _is_ a way to stop this thing—I know there is. We just have to find it. And we will, and we'll end this nightmare, and someday everything will be all right again."

Geppetto's eyes rose to meet her fiery gaze, and he sighed.

"I have something for you," he said. There was no argument or rebuttal or 'yes, you're probably right'. An entire change of subject. That was fine. He was depressed. She could give him a moment's rest before she tried to snap him out of it again.

"What is it?" she asked, trying to hide her impatience.

"For your sister, actually." He unfolded his hands and revealed a tiny figurine. Little scrap bits of metal and wood came together to form a long torso, a four legs, a savage head. A short length of unwound spring made an itty bitty tail, and spare bits of canvas and glove and thread formed a scruffy mane.

It was a lion, small enough to fit in the palm of her hand.

"Her very own Aslan," he said, a weary smile warming his face.

She didn't know what to say.

She was touched—that he'd honestly listened to her complaints, that he'd thought of her sister, that he'd taken the time to come to her aid. She wanted to jump forward and hug him and thank him and cry to the one person she was sure was really listening.

And yet a part of her was still angry—angry that he'd given up so easily, that he sympathized with the Chancellor, that he used valuable time making toys when he should be saving the world from his last invention.

And yet another part of her was drowning in grief. Because she knew what the gas meant. Because she knew that he was at least partly right. Because somehow this little toy meant that it really was the end, that they had nothing left but to enjoy their final hours.

"Thank you," she said quietly, taking the little lion from him. "I know she'll love it."

* * *

AN: In case it wasn't clear (who am I kidding, I _know _it wasn't, because it wasn't meant to be) the person who asked about the lion was 2, shortly before his release into the outside world. As was pointed out to me, the diary said that 2's first creation was a telescope thingy. But it never said he didn't make a lion. :D


	5. August 24

Disclaimer: I still own nothing. Nothing at all.

AN: Two chapters left after this one, plus an epilogue. And yes. Voldemort. Because... well, because we don't know for sure what time period this takes place in, and he's the first person I associate with flashes of green light. Remember, when you take away her gun she's just a college student with a kid sister. She's read the books.

* * *

**August 24**

Peter was snoozing in the airlock when Sam arrived. Judging by the puddle of drool on his clothes he'd been there a while. She nudged him awake and sent him on his way before pushing her way through the heavy door into the bunker.

She was met by a bright flash of light.

For a brief instant, her mind ran through every possible scenario, real and imagined.

--it was the machines and their poisoned gas

--something was on fire

--a time traveler had arrived

--a new invention was doing something peculiar

--he'd requested a piece of a film projector or strobe light or something

--she was having a seizure

--Voldemort

She tore herself from her panic and lunged at the scientist, guns blazing, ready to protect him from whatever it was.

Whatever it was.

Which happened to be the quartz-dream-catcher-mask-thing. The horrible green light stopped suddenly and the Scientist reeled. She was behind him in an instant, catching him in her arms and searching for any sign of an attacker. Besides the mask thing, anyway.

"It's all right," Geppetto rasped, patting her arm away with withered hands. His face was ashen, his eyes sunken.

"No you're not," she said. "We need to get you a doctor. We—"

"Shhh." Weak as he was, there was strength in his command. He reached forward at the device that had panicked her a moment before: connected to the mask was a cable. Connected to the cable was the Talisman. And behind that, dangling from a bit of string, was one of his little dolls, its skin made of burlap, its back labeled _5_. Slowly Geppetto untied the string and caught the little doll in his weathered hand.

And then it blinked. The doll—_the inanimate object_—blinked. And looked around. And cocked its head, waiting patiently for the Scientist to set it carefully on the ground. It stood there for a while, looking up at the Scientist and Sam and then around the room, before it meandered out of sight.

Finally Sam remembered how to speak:

"What… what was that thing?" she asked.

"That was Five,"

"There are... five of those—" He nodded. _"What the hell are they?"_

"Pieces," the Scientist said slowly. His strength was starting to fail him. Sam walked him back to his cot and he slumped down, utterly exhausted. Unsure of what else to do, she went to the cooler and pulled out a bottle of water and an energy bar of some kind. He looked like he could use something to eat.

"Pieces of what?" she asked, handing them over. He drained half the bottle in one gulp, almost choking on the water that poured down his throat, but when he spoke again his voice sounded more steady:

"Pieces of myself," he explained. "I had to give them a conscience. I couldn't let them turn out like the other…" Another gulp finished the bottle; she quickly procured another. This one he sipped more carefully, taking a moment to breathe and collect himself.

"I apologize for not telling you," he said. "That little figurine I gave you—"

"You're not telling me that was one, too?" she squeaked. If that thing was alive—if it did something to Lizzy—

"No, no. But one of them made it. Two."

It took her a moment to puzzle that out. Either one of those things made the lion and his name was Two, or two of the things made it and Geppetto had just forgotten for a moment, or one of them had made two lions. But that didn't matter.

"He thought she might enjoy the company," he said gently.

"Hold on. So there's five of these things running around this bunker?" she asked, glancing at the ground, hoping she hadn't stepped on one by mistake.

"I've released all but Five into the outside world." He'd released all but five-- there were more than five of them? Or they were all gone except the one named Five? And whose idea had it been to name them after _numbers_?

"Then they're dead," she said, forcing herself past her own frazzled thoughts. This whole situation was frustrating enough without confusing herself. "They wouldn't last a second in the gas—"

"They are automatons, Samantha. They are alive, but they do not need to breathe. The gas won't harm them."

"Then they'll get stepped on, or shot, or blown up, or—why did you even make these things?" she demanded, her voice rising dangerously. She heard a squeak and a rattle across the room. The little doll thing was huddled in a corner, covering its head with the shredded remnants of a sandal. She couldn't be sure, but it looked like it was covering its ears—or the place where its ears were supposed to be.

"So they can do what we cannot," he said wearily. "Maybe they can make a difference in the course of this world. And if…" He stopped himself. He'd said too much.

"_If_?" She stared daggers at him, demanding an explanation. They had at least eight more hours before her shift ended. Plenty of time for her to pry it out of him. He considered that fact—she could see it in his eyes—and gave up before she had a chance to make him miserable.

"If all else fails, they will ensure that life will go on." Those words held hope. That all else _wouldn't_ fail. That survival _was _possible. That she would accept and understand.

No such luck.

"So this is… this is what, a contingency plan?" she demanded, her voice rising to something just below a scream. The doll thing cowered deeper under the shredded sandal. "All this time you've been sitting here coming up with plan B? In case you haven't noticed, we're still alive!" She jumped to her feet, furious. "We've still got a fighting chance, and we'd have even more if you hadn't given up on us already!"

Without another word she left. There was nothing else to do. Not when she had a gun at her hip and so much temptation to use it. No. Better to leave. Better to run than to lose it. She stormed away and into the airlock that divided the cold, awful bunker from the outside world.

The world that, for all its gas and violence and mortar shells exploding in the distance, wasn't nearly as awful to think about. Because there was still a chance.

Somehow. Somewhere.

She just had to find it.


	6. August 26

Disclaimer: I still own nothing. Nothing at all.

AN: I think this one speaks for itself, actually.

* * *

**August 26**

On the 26th of August, Sam didn't show up for her shift. It wasn't a matter of being late.

In fact, she came early.

She came running, a bloody body in her arms. The body belonged to a child, but even so it was tinier than it should have been: it was missing both its legs, and one arm had been reduced to a stump. Blood stained woman and child alike; only furious tears washed the gore from Sam's face.

"Let me in," she snarled when she reached the door of the airlock. "Dammit_, let me in_!" Frantic, she threw herself against the door, kicking and screaming until it burst open.

A student shouldn't have had such strength. Even a soldier shouldn't have been able to do it.

But air locks were never designed to hold against sisters.

Peter was on his way through the inner door, his gun raised, his every muscle poised for a fight. He didn't stand a chance. In an instant she plowed past him, all but trampling him as she burst into the Geppetto's workshop.

That was where her strength failed her. Her knees buckled and she tumbled to the floor at the Scientist's feet, clutching the tiny twitching body against her chest.

"Geppetto," she choked, barely able to form the words. "Geppetto, please."

He could only stare, his mouth agape in horror as blood pooled around them.

"It was a mortar shell," she tried to explain between gasps. "It went through—it – you have to help her, Geppetto. Please, do something, do anything…"

"I don't…" he whispered. "I can't…"

"You can save her, remember? That's what you said, you can save pieces of someone—so life goes on—you explained it to me and you can do it now—please don't let her die—please…" She tried to say more, but the words were lost in frantic sobs. In her arms the mutilated child moaned.

"I can't do that," he said, his voice still shaking.

"You have to!" She wailed. "I know you can—you can save her—you have to—please—"

"No." His voice was firm this time. Solid as a knife in her heart. "Don't you understand?" he knelt in front of her, his coat stained crimson in the deepening pool of blood. "If I bring her back now she'll spend the rest of her life running from something she can't even begin to understand. She will live in constant fear. She'll be in agony, Samantha—"

He had never been a religious man. He'd never thought about his soul until he began to dabble in the Black Arts, and by then it was already too far gone to be worth preserving—he'd lost it when he created the Machine, though he could still feel the jagged edges from the bits of it that had been torn away. It was something he could do to himself, but not to this child. Not to this innocent little girl.

"She's out of time," Samantha begged. "_Please_."

"You have to let her go," he whispered, wrapping his arms around both the girls and squeezing them in a tight embrace. "Let her find Narnia."

Lizzy whimpered one last time.

A shudder ran through what remained of her body, and she fell silent.

Soldiers poured into the bunker.

They seized the woman and tore her from Geppetto's arms, dragging her up and out of the shelter.

A few of them tried to remove the body, but they couldn't pry it from her grip.

They didn't see the tears pouring from behind bespectacled eyes. They didn't see a tiny striped doll run for his life, his pen-nib fingers bright with blood, his mind already disintegrating from what he had witnessed.

They just kept dragging their captive away until she stopped struggling and left her where she lay.


	7. August 31

Disclaimer: I still own nothing. Nothing at all.

AN: And this is it. I've really enjoyed writing this story, and I'm really grateful to all of you for reading it. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

* * *

**August 31**

Samantha had been seen wandering the area. She was still armed, still dangerous. Her sanity was questionable, if any remained after the death of her sister, and she was becoming as great a threat to the Scientist as the machines. Several of the soldiers refused to shoot her—they had been friends once, classmates, brothers and sisters in arms, and they weren't ready to kill one of their own without definite proof that she was a clear threat.

But as long as she remained alive, the Scientist had to move. He was in too much danger to stay. The last gas attack had dissipated by now, and the Scientist should, by all means, remain safe as long as he wore a gas mask. The most secure location would be somewhere with high ground, where a soldier with good aim could take out the woman and any attacking machines before they got too close.

No van this time. Even if they'd managed to find one that still worked, there was no hope of getting over the cratered, rubble-strewn roads. They went by foot: the Scientist carrying his assets (a peculiar mask-like device, a small canvas-covered automaton and the Talisman), two rebels carrying the rest, and four additional soldiers protecting the group as they marched from the bloodstained bunker to their destination.

It should have been a fairly simple task.

They should not have been caught by surprise. The killer machines had always been so large before, their footsteps announced from miles away.

They'd never been small or agile. Not like this.

It came as an explosion of gunfire, mowing down the three men in the front before they had a chance to react. One of them seized the Scientist and threw him to the ground before he too was blasted away by the stream of bullets.

Two soldiers left. They fired wildly at the creature—a machine that looked like a dog, automatic guns bursting from its sides, guided by a single blood-red eye, zigzagging around the attempts to strike it before—

TATATATATATATATATATAT

The last of the soldiers plunged to the ground. The monstrosity lunged at the bodies one at a time, its metal claws ensuring that they were indeed dead. It reached the Scientist, still quivering amidst the carnage, and its evil eye blazed.

RATATATATATATATATATATAT

The beast was thrown back, a dozen fresh holes in its frame. It snarled wildly, only to be struck by another surge of bullets, this one from somewhere else—to the left of the Scientist—no—

"_STAY DOWN_!"

A figure—a human figure—dashed from the shadow of the buildings, the gun in its hand alight as it charged the beast:

RATATATATATATA-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK

Out of bullets. But the figure didn't stop running.

The beast steadied itself and started to fire.

The person with the gun swung the useless weapon—like a baseball bat, like a sword— and struck the monstrosity with all its might. The beast's head and a good portion of its neck went flying; the rest of it collapsed in a broken heap.

The figure kneeled by the Scientist's side.

"Are you okay?" She checked his pulse.

"Samantha?" he whispered, staring incredulously up at her.

"You need to get out of here," she said, pulling at him to get up. "The Rebels won't be the only ones who heard that. Leave before more of those things come."

He'd managed to climb to his knees, still staring at the line of bullet holes that perforated her chest, at the crimson stain that was quickly spreading down her shirt. "Samantha, you're hurt."

"I'll be fine," she said, already scanning for more machines. "I told you, I'm never going to stop fighting."

"You don't understand," he said, grabbing her shoulder. "You shouldn't be—"

"I can still fight," she insisted, glancing at him. Her pupils were dilated. Her skin was bone-white from blood loss. Her expression was almost delirious.

"You need to rest," he said, pulling on her. She didn't have the strength to stay on her knees. She didn't have the faculties to know she'd fallen.

"I won't stop," she repeated. "I'm going to kill the machine. I'm going to save us. I can't stop until I do."

Even if the Rebels' doctors could save her, they wouldn't. Not while they believed her to be a traitor and a rogue.

She was dying.

Nothing so horrible had ever been so clear.

"I'm not asking you to stop," he whispered, pulling out the Talisman and setting it in its place on the Transfer device.

"I won't stop," she whispered.

"I know." He kissed the girl's forehead and laid the mask over her face. "You don't have to."

The brilliant green light only surged for a few seconds before the last flicker of life drained out of her.

He touched the seventh creature lightly, half-afraid to learn if his attempt had worked at all. It rose quickly, startled at his touch, and ducked into the shelter of a still-warm body.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. The creature only looked confused. _Sorry for what?_ its expression said before it looked around again. Its eyes—_her_ eyes fell on Samantha's pale face. She twitched away, disturbed to be so close to something dead, but the emotion ended there. She didn't recognize the face, the clothes, the death.

She didn't remember who she had been.

He closed his eyes. It was better this way.

"Seven," he said, cupping his hand around the tiny creature that Samantha had become. "Listen carefully. You will fight the machines, but I brought you here for a greater purpose. I want you to find the others who are like you. Guard them. Protect them. Keep them safe and keep them sane."

_Like you did for me._

"And don't ever, ever give up. Life must go on."


End file.
